Individual Scholarship

Jason Ur

Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations University of Chicago

(This article originally appeared in Akkadica 123 (2002), fasc. 1, and is made available electronically with the permission of the editor.)

Since its inception in 1999, the Syrian-American Hamoukar Expedition has attempted to place on-site excavations into a larger context both on the site itself and within its region. The Tell Hamoukar Survey (THS) has conducted site-based surface collection and documentation of off-site traces of land use such as ancient roads and field scatters. Our ultimate goal is to understand the history of human settlement and land use in the eastern Upper Khabur basin through the synthesis of intensive problem-oriented excavation and extensive site survey and landscape studies.

This report summarizes the preliminary results of the 2000–2001 Tell Hamoukar Survey; discussed at length are the history of settlement in the region, the articulation of settlements via ancient roads (hollow ways), and the intensification of agriculture at the end of the 3rd millennium.